Saturday, June 23, 2007

Rahm Wants To Cut Cheney's Funding

By Cernig

The White House keeps saying it's only a "small matter" that Dark Lord Cheney thinks his office isn't a part of the executive branch. So Rahm Emmanuel intends taking them at their word and offering smaller funding - actually, none - for Cheney in the executive's budget.

Following Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that his office is not a part of the executive branch of the US government, Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) plans to introduce an amendment to the the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill to cut funding for Cheney's office.

The amendment to the bill that sets the funding for the executive branch will be considered next week in the House of Representatives.

"The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch," said Emanuel in a statement released to RAW STORY. "However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot ignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice President should be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the Vice President's funding is consistent with his legal arguments."

At a press briefing yesterday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino said that Cheney's assertion that he operates outside of the executive branch of government was "an interesting constitutional question that people can debate" and a "non-issue."

On Thursday, Emanuel suggested that if Cheney feels his office is not part of the executive branch "he should return the salary the American taxpayers have been paying him since January 2001, and move out of the home for which they are footing the bill."

Now at one level this is a political stunt - the amendment has little chance of passing, I would think, and even if it did Bush would veto it. Still, at another level it points up just how out of control Cheney is nowadays. As I noted earlier, even staunch Republicans think the spin coming from the White House in an attempt to retroactively guard Cheney's butt is making a mockery of concept of the rule of law. If it takes a political stunt to get that message across, all well and good.